McCain to Obama:Send forces to Nigeria (?)

Republican Senator John McCain says the United States should send troops to Nigeria to rescue over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram takfiri militants.

“If they knew where they were, I certainly would send in US troops to rescue them, in a New York minute I would, without permission of the host country,” McCain said in an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

“I wouldn’t be waiting for some kind of permission from some guy named Goodluck Jonathan,” the senator added.

In April, Boko Haram committed mass abduction of teenage schoolgirls from Chibok school in northeastern Borno state.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said that he believed the girls remained in the country.

On Tuesday, the special duties minister, Taminu Turaki, said the government was ready to hold talks with the militants about the kidnapped schoolgirls.

McCain said that the UN charter authorized military intervention on behalf of the girls because their abduction rose to the level of “crimes against humanity.”

“The United Nations Charter recognized crimes against humanity, this fits into the category of crimes against humanity, and that gives any nation the license if they can to stop a crime against humanity, the same reason we should have if we could have freed the people at Dachau or Auschwitz,” McCain said.

The hawkish senator said there is no need for the Nigerian government’s permission for a military intervention.

“I would not be involved in the niceties of getting the Nigerian government to agree, because if we did rescue these people, there would be nothing but gratitude from the Nigerian government, such as it is,” he said.

“If we rescued these young girls, it would be the high point of the [President Barack Obama’s] popularity.”